ballot papers: one to choose a presidential candidate, one to choose a Senator, one to choose a member of the House of Assembly, and one to choose a councillor. In municipalities, voters will get a fifth ballot paper for the election of a mayor. Unsophisticated voters are likely to be confused by all these bits of paper, and the number of spoiled ballots will probably increase enormously. Extensive programmes of voter education will be needed to enable most voters to exercise a meaningful choice. Polling days The Electoral Act allows polling to be held over one or more days, and the Bill does not change this. In view of what has been said in the preceding paragraph, voting will have to take place over more than one day since each voter will be expected to make at least four choices. Polling days will be regarded as public holidays25, so presumably they will be fixed so as to coincide with a weekend. There are, however, dangers in having polling over more than one day. Observers must be on their guard against possible irregularities occurring during the time that the polling stations are not in operation. Conduct of poll Before polling begins, every presiding officer will have to count and record the number of ballot papers received at his or her polling station, and the count will have to take place in the presence of candidates, election agents and observers.26 This will help to ensure transparency in the electoral process, but the Bill should have gone further and required the Commission to disclose the total number of ballot papers printed for each election. The number of voting compartments and ballot boxes to be provided in each polling station will no longer be fixed in the Act but will be left to the discretion of the presiding officer, 27 though presumably the Commission will be able to specify the number through directives or regulations. Police officers will not be allowed into polling stations except to vote;28 this will allay fears, expressed in previous elections, that the police were taking over the voting process. Presiding officers will be entitled to call on the police to quell disturbances, however, which means that police officers will have to be stationed fairly close to polling stations. Hitherto, in presidential and parliamentary elections, voters have generally had to cast their votes at a polling station within the constituency in which they are registered. Now they will have to vote at a polling station within the local authority ward in which they are registered.29 This is a necessary consequence of holding local authority and parliamentary elections simultaneously, but it may cause confusion even though wards must be delimited so that they fall wholly within constituencies.30 Voters will be entitled to vote even if they are not registered on the ward voters roll, so long as they can produce a voters’ registration certificate (which, presumably, must show that they are entitled to be registered on the roll)31. Before being issued with a ballot paper, a registered voter will have to produce a voters’ registration certificate or proof of identity. It should be not25 See clause 29 of the Bill. 26 See clause 39 of the Bill. 27 See clause 40 of the Bill. 28 See clause 40 of the Bill. 29 See clause 41 of the Bill. 30 Section 61A(5) of the Constitution. 31 See clause 41 of the Bill. 14